Health

System for health records still in 'buggy era,' Bush says

BALTIMORE - When it comes to patients' health records, the United States hasn't left the "buggy era," President Bush said Tuesday at a veterans hospital.

"On the research side, we're the best," Bush told about 120 guests, including veterans, health care professionals, doctors from Johns Hopkins Hospital and the staff from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Baltimore. "We're coming up with more innovative ways to save lives. . . . On the providers' side, we're kind of still in the buggy era."

The president has set a goal of assuring that most Americans have electronic health records within the next 10 years. To address issues of privacy, Bush said enrollment would be voluntary: "Your records are private if that's the way you want them to be."

The Bush administration is considering closing some VA hospitals and portions of others. The administration also is looking at building new VA hospitals in Florida and other states and opening 150 outpatient clinics.

To push his patient records initiative, Bush is creating a national health information technology coordinator, a sub-Cabinet-level position, at the Health and Human Services Department. He said the federal government will set technical standards for the switch from paper to electronic medical records by the end of the year, so doctors and hospitals can share patient records nationwide.

"If you're traveling from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., or to Texas and you have an accident, you're going to go into the hospital, you may be knocked out, but what's going to be able to happen - once we get this uniform medical records and this automation - you're going to be able to go into the hospital in Texas and they're going to be able to download, immediately, your record," said Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.

Dental X-rays taken during pregnancy can significantly impair the health of the fetus even though it does not receive radiation directly, according to a study by researchers from the University of Washington.

Pregnant women who were exposed to dental irradiation were nearly four times as likely to have a low birth weight baby, even though their pregnancies went full term, the team reports today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Low birth weights have been widely associated with developmental and behavioral problems.

Direct exposure of a fetus to radiation is known to have a variety of adverse effects, but the use of lead aprons and directional X-rays has virtually eliminated such direct exposure during dental procedures. So the X-rays must be exerting and indirect effect on fetal development via the mother.

"Women should try to avoid elective dental radiographs or any others during pregnancy, especially during the first trimester," said Dr. Philippe Hujoel, who led the study.

The team used data from Washington Dental Service, a nonprofit dental insurance company, and Washington state birth records. They identified 1,117 low birth weight infants born between January 1993 and December 2000 and matched them with 4,468 children of normal weight born during the same period.

They found that about 10 percent of pregnant women had undergone dental procedures and that those who had X-rays were 3.6 times as likely to deliver a low birth weight baby as those who were not exposed to radiation.

WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration is forcing makers of more than three dozen versions of pancreatic enzymes to prove the prescription drugs' quality and seek government approval to stay on the market.

The enzymes are crucial for treatment of people with cystic fibrosis and other conditions, so the FDA is giving manufacturers four years to complete the necessary research and paperwork. Those that don't would then have to quit selling.

None of the pancreatic enzymes sold today received formal FDA approval, and their quality and effects vary so widely that the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation urged FDA to intervene.

CHICAGO - Blood proteins suggesting early artery damage might be early warning signs of diabetes, researchers say.

Diabetics are known to face an increased risk of circulatory problems, artery disease and heart attacks. But the study found possible evidence of artery damage as much as eight years before diabetes was diagnosed.

The study, which appears in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, strengthens the evidence linking diabetes with silent inflammation, which has been associated with heart disease.

The results stem from blood tests given to 32,826 women who participated in a study of U.S. nurses that began in 1976. Whether the findings apply to men, too, is uncertain, the researchers said.

The women provided blood samples in 1989 and 1990; during the next decade, 737 developed diabetes.

The researchers looked for three proteins that when elevated in the blood suggest the presence of irritation or damage to cells lining blood vessel walls: E-selectin, ICAM-1 and VCAM-1.

CHICAGO - Dyslexia really is more common in boys than girls, new research says, contradicting studies suggesting that boys are simply more likely to be diagnosed with the problem because they tend to act up in class when they get frustrated.

The findings suggest boys are at least twice as likely to have dyslexia, a learning disability that involves trouble with reading, said the authors, led by Dr. Michael Rutter of King's College in London. They said the findings should prompt research into why this is so.

Rutter and colleagues based their findings on data from four large studies involving more than 10,000 children who had been given standard reading tests in New Zealand and Britain.

Dyslexia was found in 18 percent to about 22 percent of the boys, compared with 8 percent to 13 percent of the girls. Children took reading tests at various times in each study, between ages 7 and 15.

Rutter's report appears in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.

World and national headlines

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright